


Magical Girls and Magical Boys

by josephina_x



Series: Lex Luthor the Time-Witch (*dun-dun-dunnn!*) [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: (I blame possibly!OOC!Lex on the long time lapses, (most likely), (that does things to a body y'know ;), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Halloween, Magic, Not Beta Read, Out of Character, Spells & Enchantments, Witches, and don't particularly want him dead), aren't trying to kill him, or around lots of people who aren't lying to him, where he's either by himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex gets a crash course in magic. The world will never be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Magical Girls and Magical Boys  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com/)  
> Characters/Pairings: Gen, Clark + Lex, Lex + Zatanna  
> Continuity: Smallville  
> Genre(s): Drama, AU, Fluff  
> Rating: PG  
> Warnings: Unbeta'd; ~~waaaay too much strikeout~~ , and a somewhat!evil!Lex  
> Spoilers: general through most of season 7, but makes specific reference to facts from 9x12 (Warrior) and 8x17 (Hex) among others in seasons prior; takes place during and after 7x16 Descent (which aired in, er, April...)  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Word Count: 12,700+  
> Summary: Lex gets a crash course in magic. The world will never be the same.  
> Prompts Used: Traditional elements #1 (Witches (Zatanna-like magic)), #8 (Books on Halloween/Samhain and/or magic (ancient or modern). Book Of Shadows.), #31 (Wands), and #39 (Spells/Curses/Hexes)  
> Author’s Notes: I shouldn't be writing this (I have both a SVBB piece and a thesis that need work/finishing post-haste), but I wrote this anyway. Because I am dumb. Yes.
> 
> Written for bradygirl_12’s DCU Halloween challenge 2013 :)

Lex had killed his father and buried him.

And he was sort of okay with that. ~~Not really.~~

Frankly, if he'd realized at the time the massive amount of paperwork it would have generated, he might've opted to simply dissappear him, or lock him in a cage somewhere out of the way. People couldn't be declared dead until seven years after they'd vanished, after all -- not without a body.

But then, if he'd done that, Lionel would still have been in the background shadows, still taking up time, effort and energy to worry about, even if seemingly secure. He had wanted ~~no, _needed_~~ Lionel finally out of the way for his own piece of mind, if not safety.

Besides, he'd done the math. It had been three years, six months, and twenty-one days since Lionel's original conviction for the patricide he'd committed, and if the Teagues hadn't bought off the governor to get him pardoned and back out on the streets, today would have been the very last day of Lionel Luthor's life. _If_ he hadn't cheated the system. After all _legal_ alternatives and other possible avenues to delay the inevitable had been exhausted with Lionel's limited funds, the day that ~~Lionel had been executed for his crimes~~ Lex had killed him would have been the day that Lionel would have been executed for his crimes. And Lex was a big believer in truth and justice these days.

It was too bad that people kept lying to him and betraying him. It made life far more difficult than it needed to be.

Goddamned paperwork.

And with Gina dead -- killed just before she was about to tell him the identity of the Traveler, no less! -- things were only going to be that much harder. He'd trusted her, and now she was gone. Anything that he wanted done that he couldn't trust with anyone else, he would now have to handle himself. And that included dealing with Lionel's estate.

Lex was certain that Lionel knew far more than he'd ever told him, or anyone. Lex was also deathly certain, if not utterly convinced, that ~~his father~~ Lionel had had contact with the Traveler, and had been working for him and the Kryptonians for at least several years now. Certainly since not long after the second meteor shower. And if he ~~was~~ had been in league with the aliens, then he likely had some rather damaging artifacts hidden away among his personal effects, or squirreled away in long-term storage.

With Lionel gone, Lex now inherited everything, for good or for ill. The problem was that, with Gina's death, Lex likely didn't have a lot of _time_ before the rest of Veritas came down on his head. So he could either follow the keys, go looking for alien clues by searching through whatever of his late father's effects that he could find, or try to split his time between them both.... and likely not make it far enough with either before he found himself killed.

Lex shook his head. As much as his -- call it what it was -- _obsession_ was driving him to go off and use the keys immediately, he'd go for the low-hanging fruit -- finishing dealing with enacting Lionel's will -- yet more paperwork -- then he'd clear out Lionel's office -- careful of traps, especially poisons and bombs -- and _quickly_ rummage through what few personal effects he could manage to track down and get his hands on in... oh, he'd give himself 48 hours. His support staff would need the time anyway to finalize the structural changes that would need to be enacted short-term to deal with the absence caused by Gina's death, and bolster his company's general employees' moral that needed to be enacted after Lionel's removal to keep the stock price up.

Frankly, he could use a little time to himself after everything he'd needed to do in the last few days. ...Hell, maybe 'reminiscing' about his 'dear old dad' would give him just the motivation he needed to see this all through to the end of things.

~*~*~*~*~*~

And then Clark had to confront him again, and not nearly as silently as he had at the funeral. The jerk.

~*~*~*~*~*~

So, understandably, Lex was feeling somewhat depressed as he dug through another box of ~~memories~~ _junk_ in the Luthor's collective storehouse of... stuff.

He sighed and debated taking another swig of whiskey as he crammed the cardboard lid he was holding back down onto the box of Warrior Angel comics that he'd accidentally opened up. That shouldn't have happened at all, because he'd sworn that he'd had those thoroughly labeled, goddamnit, to avoid that very thing.

And when the hell had his father managed to sneak all of his crap back into the family warehouse, anyway? Didn't he know that that would have been the last place any person in their right mind would have put anything?

Lex shoved the box aside roughly, wondering why the hell he'd thought this a good idea anyway as newly-remembered memories of when Oliver and he had actually been _friends_ dancing his way through his brain and making him feel more than a little ill. And then found himself face-to-face with a box labeled '12'th birthday' and his breath caught.

Then curled his lips and nearly snarled at the labeling that had been brazenly written across it. Dad and his mindgames. Because _12'th birthday? **What** 12'th birthday? The one that nobody attended at all?_ And it wasn't as though that had happened because of his baldness, or no-one would have happened at his eleventh, or his tenth before that. And after everything that had happened with Julian...

Lex backed off a step or two and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. _Those_ memories were at least less-immediate, for his having been able to remember them for years and having lived with and in and through them thoroughly.

He stopped for a swig of whiskey -- straight from the bottle, screw the glass -- then grimaced and grabbed the obviously-empty packing box to toss it aside.

He nearly dropped it as the weight of it surprised him, and he felt and heard something _sliiiiide_ within it.

Lex froze.

He slowly lowered the box.

He stared at it, swallowed hard, and wondered when and how Lionel had managed to steal back his lead box from Clark for him, let alone _why_.

He set the box down, put the bottle of whiskey aside, and slowly pulled back the lid.

Then he stared with no small shock down at what lay there oh-so-innocuously at the bottom of the box.

_Is that what I think it is?_

Lex reached in and pulled out a... present. With a thin red ribbon and a bow and even an envelope containing a card.

The card threw him. _This can't be from my parents._ They never gave cards with presents -- it was either obvious, or it wasn't really a gift -- just money with a card declaring from whom.

He pulled it loose from the wrapping paper and stared at it like it would bite him. After a moment, he carefully ripped the envelope flap across the top and tugged the card loose, then opened it.

His eyes narrowed as he read. It was short enough, but...

He double-checked the envelope, because he hadn't thought he'd started receiving gifts that tried to take advantage of his status as a Luthor until he was fifteen, at least, trying to get in good with his father through him. (The more fools, they.)

Oddly enough, it looked as though the envelope had never been opened before -- from the look of it, Lex doubted the flaps had been opened and resealed. So how had Lionel known who it was from to deny it from Lex? And why would he have kept it?

 _John Zatara._ Lex knew his father's enemies, those of the family watch-list, both inside and out. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but not because it was one of those of Victoria and Harry Hardwick's ilk.

Lex's frown deepened futher as he reread the card. _This doesn't sound like the usual sort of pandering, either..._ Just a salutation, a name, and a method to address him if he had any questions about the... it wasn't even referred to as a gift, exactly. _Odd. It sounds more like the man was truly meaning to address **me** , solely._

Lex flipped the card over to the back. Plain, heavy cardstock -- nothing so telling there.

Lex set down the card and weighed the somewhat somberly-wrapped present in his hands, for all that it had a dark blood-red bow attached to and around its deep royal purple wrapping.

Why had Lionel kept the package from him? He obviously hadn't known the purpose of it, not having read the card, and had had no reason to keep it from him. Even if it had been sent via a courier, sender-known, why would Lionel have kept it when he so easily could have simply thrown it away years ago? To know that even one person, random and unknown or not, had cared enough to send him something on that horrible day, would have been more than enough to make him feel--

Lex suddenly felt cold as it suddenly dawned on him. _Perhaps that was it,_ he realized. What if that was _exactly_ why Lionel had not given it to him. What if he had _wanted_ Lex to be miserable? He'd hated Lex for years, after all. He'd hated him ever since...

...Julian had died.

Lex had forgotten. _Lionel hadn't known._ He'd thought Lex had killed his little baby brother, not Lillian, because Lex hadn't said anything otherwise. And he'd hated him openly for it ever since.

While Lex had been horribly traumatized by the incident and blocked it out for years, Lionel had been...

Lex shivered. He hadn't had many, if any, real friends before that -- not that he could remember, anyway, post-meteor-shower -- but Lionel had begun actively attempting to convince him that he couldn't have friends after Julian's death. He'd thought Lionel had started after his utterly disastrous twelfth birthday party. _...But what if it had been before?_

Lex suddenly wondered if any of those invitations he'd written, by-hand, had ever actually been sent, and found himself almost crushing the present in his hands, shaking with rage.

He closed his eyes and forcibly stopped grinding his teeth together, drew out his breath in longer than short, heavy pants, made himself loosen the muscles in his shoulders, arms, and hands. Now was not the time to scream and break things. Not even for Lionel. _Especially_ not for Lionel. Lionel was dead, and...

Lex took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. He did this again, and again, until he felt less bloody-minded, and his thoughts had taken on a colder, more-sharp, almost crystalline focus.

...No. No, it was likely that those invitations had been sent out, after all. Lionel wouldn't have needed to do anything on that front. If Lex had been an outsider-looking-in, thinking about things objectively, ~~he likely wouldn't have attended his own party, either.~~ he wouldn't have let his own child attend a Luthor party if he'd had a choice in the matter, himself. Between the rumors of Julian's death flying around both Metropolis and the school -- that Lionel had done it, that Lex had been the one to do it, that Lionel had forced Lex to do it -- and his freak-outs after he'd returned to Excelsior -- which he only now remembered after the fact, after Summerholt, having blacked out and blocked-out those episodes at the time -- that had likely been more than enough to off-put any one of his classmates, let alone the adults.

It also hadn't helped that he'd just been skipped up a grade at the time, and with his shoddy attendance record for the school year already for having been home and home-schooled during the last trimester of his mother's pregnancy, it wasn't exactly a wonder that he hadn't known anyone in his new grade well-enough for them to want to attend, and he knew from past years that old friends stuck at lower grades tended to not want anything to do with him anymore once he'd passed them by.

The only real difference that might have been made was whether or not Lionel had put forth the effort to make it clear that attendance was expected for his son's birthday party, regardless of scandal at the time, and without that...

...well, Lex had lived through the end result.

Lex opened his eyes and looked at what he was holding. Really _looked_ at it.

It was something his father had kept from him ~~like his love~~ ~~not that he deserved that, either~~. But his father was dead, and no-one was keeping this from him now.

So he looked at the package, more than a decade old, that he held in his two hands at that moment.

And he slowly unwound the ribbon.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was sitting on a pile of boxes in the storage warehouse and frowning, because the present he'd received from Mr. Zatara had been a book, and the book was...

 _Weird._ It was weird. _Sullivan would have a field day with this._ Then the thought belatedly caused him to grimace. Chloe had still been working with -- _for_ \-- his father. He'd never seen that coming, even though he should have, long-since. --How else would she have survived, after all? She hadn't picked Lex's side, once Lionel had gotten out of prison. And, in the battle between Lionel and Lex, that had left her with only one other option.

Like it or not, Lex knew he tended not to immediately set out to kill the people who did not pick him over his father, and for very good reason. ~~It was wrong.~~ That would have had him at odds with the entire rest of the planet, after all.

Lionel, on the other hand, had a longstanding history of killing -- or setting up to be killed -- his enemies, competitors, 'friends', family members...

But Chloe likely couldn't have helped him with this, anyway. The book was, it seemed, a primer. It was mostly written in English, with smatterings of Latin, Ancient Greek, and Roman, as well as Chinese and Germanic spread throughout. There was a section with Norse runes, even, if he was identifying them correctly. It was completely handwritten, and seemed to be almost random sections of text that, taken together, nearly made up a cohesive whole.

It he had to make a wild guess, he'd think that it was a primer on, well, _magic_ , of all things. Though why someone would have sent him a book on that at age twelve, sight-unseen...

Lex frowned. _Magic. Zatara._ That connection helped spark a recollection in his mind.

He slid off of the boxes and headed for the nearest computer station, looking to run a search on the larger, main inventory list for the building.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Twenty minutes later, Lex was holding a genuine family grimoire in his hands. _The Book of Zatara._ He'd been searching for magical artifacts as much as alien ones -- since the 'magical' ones usually tended to be of alien origin, in his humble experience, a la the Kryptonian Stones of Power as a start -- and then vaguely recalled having okayed one of Gina's acquisition recommendations. He'd had a purchasing agent sent to an auction to buy a few things in a lot that were to have originated from the personal possession of the proclaimed Maestro of Magic himself. Lex hadn't had a chance in the meantime to look through the purchases yet. ...Well, not until today.

Having looked through it all now, the only thing of any true worth from the sales lot he'd received was the book, and it vividly reminded him of Isobel's spellbook when last he'd seen it.

He opened the book to the back -- mostly blank -- flipped to the last few pages that _had_ been filled in, and compared the book with the handwriting on the card he'd received, and also with the inscription in the front of his errant birthday present. They all matched.

 _Hm._ Perhaps he should have a word with Mr. Zatara. He might like his book back, after all, and surely he would be willing to give Lex a few answers for his trouble...

Lex mulled over this for a moment. Did he really want to stop here? There were quite a lot of his father's things still back in that corner of the warehouse, sitting there untouched.

Then again, a magical ally might be highly useful against alien technology. Magic had certainly seemed to interface well enough with the Stones of Power, if Isobel's obsession with and apparent use of such symbology and ancient artifacts in conjunction with her own spells had been any indication of the fact. Why, Lex could hardly imagine what he might do with a modern-day understanding of such things...

Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt to ask, would it? Just a simple phone call...

...except that his database of personal purchases listed the acquisition as part of an estate sale held upon the man's _death_ , a liquidation of assets at the request of an estranged relative of the man from his ex-wife's side. Unfortunately, a person who would be willing -- or stupid enough -- to sell such a book at-auction would hardly be one to talk to about magical knowledge. (If they were, they wuld have recognized and kept it, or perhaps burned it, not sold it to the most-ignorant highest-bidder.)

Lex grimaced, then sent a quick query to his personnel department, asking after any living relatives of one John Zatara.

He got a hit back from them within seconds, including a current phone number and home address.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was less surprised than he should have been when, within a few seconds of calling the number he'd been given and a hang-up, the young woman he'd been talking to on the phone suddenly appeared in front of him in a puff of smoke.

It was a good thing that he wasn't nearly as twitchy with his firearms as his ex-Navy-SEAL instructor had tried to drill into him. ..and that he had his hands full of two books.

"You _do_ have it," Zatara's closest living blood-relative -- his daughter -- breathed out, eyes blazing as her gaze immediately locked on to the grimoire he was holding in his right hand.

Lex casually tucked it under his arm as she reached out a hand towards it -- just in time, because he nearly lost his hold on it as he felt a _very_ strong, invisible tug on it that nearly ripped it from his grasp.

_Nearly._

"That's _mine!_ " she informed him with a glare, after her initial attempt to wrest it away from him -- presumably with magic -- failed. She froze, then her eyes narrowed and she got a cagey look. "Give it to me now!"

"Actually, it's mine," Lex informed her dryly, resisting the urge to take a step back from her. "You sold it and I bought it at auction for a very hefty sum. --But I could be convinced to part with it," he added smoothly but quickly, and he did take a step back now as she advanced on him almost menacingly, "if you'll simply answer a few questions for me." He wasn't about to spend a lot of time attempting to bicker with a witch, or let her get very close to him while in a mood -- he'd learned better from his first confrontation with Isobel, and a full night and day playing piano until his fingers ran red with his own blood and he'd collapsed from utter exhaustion once Clark had dragged him away from it. (And he hadn't touched a piano since...)

An unplanned nighttime meeting all alone in a warehouse full of Luthorian belongings probably wasn't the wisest thing he'd ever done. (Rather, it probably hit somewhere down in the bottom four or five or so.) In retrospect, he probably should have waited to call her until after he'd reached the Penthouse and already hidden her grimoire away someplace. It would have been a bit less openly inviting to mishap. Instead, he'd assumed her unable to seek him out immediately, and was already regretting the decision. In fact, he was strongly considering just handing her the grimoire to get rid of her as soon as possible. This had really been a terrible idea.

"Fine," the magic user huffed out. "What do you want to know?" Zatanna Zatara asked of him, crossing her arms. "Or do you want a wish or something for it, instead?"

Lex blinked at her. "...A wish?"

"Okay, sure!" she said, clapping her hands together with a grin that was far too wide. "What's the thing you most desire right now?"

Lex felt his hackles rise. _Yes, a really terrible idea._

"...I'm sorry," he said slowly. "I think you may have misunderstood me. I didn't quite understand your... rather _generous_... offer. --You can grant wishes?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Like a genie in a bottle?" ...Or a monkey's paw? Disney movies aside, neither of those tended to end very well for the one doing the wishing, when going by the original folk tales.

She laughed slightly, though there wasn't much mirth in it. "Well, there's not exactly a limit on the number except whether I want to do it for someone, but I can grant other people's wishes. Not my own," she admitted, in a tone of voice that made it clear she thought that things would be a lot easier if she could. "So, what'll it be?"

"I have to tell you my wish?"

"Yup!"

Lex thought about this for a moment.

Then he asked, with no small trepidation, "What happens if I ask for a wish and it, for instance, _doesn't_ happen to be exactly the thing I most desire at the moment?"

"Oh, well then it'll probably go horribly pear-shaped somehow," she told him brightly.

...Now _that_ wasn't exactly filling him with a great deal of confidence. He had far too many things that he wanted -- _desired_ \-- at the moment. If carefully thinking through what would be best to wish for wouldn't help him, only what he actually selfishly wanted most...

...well, if he had to think about that, it would be ~~Clark being his friend again and never ever being judgmental again ever and helping him and supporting him and~~ something that would and could never, ever happen, and would probably cause far more problems than it might resolve even if he _could_ have it, somehow.

At the very least, he'd have to worry about Chloe and the terrorist League coming after him with torches and pitchforks, whatever he asked for, regardless. ...Hell, that could probably be the 'horribly pear-shaped' right there all on its own.

"I think I'd rather just stick with having a few of my questions answered instead, if you're amenable," Lex drew out slowly.

"Well, okay," Zatanna shrugged. "Your loss, I guess. --What do you want to know?"

Lex relaxed marginally. _So far so good._ "As a start, I received this--"

He wasn't entirely able to stifle a flinch as Zatanna stepped forward and physically ripped the gift-book out of his hands as he held it up. He grimaced, then bit down on what he'd been about to say, given the look on her face after she gave the unmarked volume the once-over.

"Okay, you jerk. It's bad enough that you've got _my_ family spellbook held hostage, but _this?!_ " She glared at him, shaking the book at him. "I ought to just--" She practically sneered at him, then got a positively evil gleam in her eyes.

"--No, y'know what? I think I'll do one better," she said with a bright grin. "I think I'll find whoever you stole this from and let them deal with you, mister. I bet that--" she opened the front cover and read off the title page, "--this _Alexander Luthor_ would be **happy** to--" she spat out.

Lex relaxed slightly and simply waited.

Zatanna looked back up at him and then paused mid-rant.

Her eyes slid back down to the page. She frowned.

"Is 'Lex' short for...?" she said slowly.

Lex nodded once, curtly.

"But..." Zatanna frowned at him, then frowned down at the book.

"-- _Wait_ ," she said grimly. "This looks like my _father's_ handwriting." She looked up at him with a scowl, then clapped the book shut. "He was teaching you? --He never told me that," she muttered. "Why didn't you start with _that?_ " she said peevishly, waving the book in front of him, then practically shoving the book back at him.

Lex took it from her neatly, but eyed her carefully.

"He wasn't teaching me," Lex explained. "He sent me the book on my twelfth birthday--"

"Yeah, that's standard," Zatanna interrupted.

Lex paused mid-explanation and mused that one over.

Then he asked, "Standard for what?"

Zatanna gave him an odd look. "For magic-users," she said. " _Homo magi_ and all that. Thirteen's when we all usually start to become active." She paused a moment. "Why, did you start early with your own family's spellbook, or something? --It's not like _mine_ will do _you_ much good," she added, plucking said Book of Zatara from his unresisting grasp.

"No, look--" Lex said, shaking his head. "You don't understand. I didn't receive this on my twelfth birthday; I found it literally fifteen minutes ago, right before finding your family grimoire and calling you. I don't know anything about magic," _though I certainly wish I did_.

Zatanna stood there and blinked at him.

"I think there might be a mistake," Lex said after a while, but that was apparently the wrong thing to say, because that had Zatanna immediately scowling at him.

"My father doesn't make mistakes," Zatanna said. "Not like that."

"Didn't," Lex said quietly, and Zatanna looked like she wanted to hex him.

" _Fine_ ," she bit out, leaving Lex remembering how to breathe again. Apparently there was a difference between magicians and witches, after all. "But you can't say that nothing strange has ever happened to you!"

Lex thought back and had to mentally shrug. "Nothing that would be attributed to witchcraft," he said.

Zatanna's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Witchcraft?"

"Well, ye--"

"--How do you even believe in magic in the first place if you can't do it yourself?" Zatanna challenged him, curling an arm around her family spellbook and planting her other hand on her hip.

"I met a witch--"

"Magician," Zatanna corrected blithely.

"No, a _witch_ ," Lex repeated, with emphasis. "Her name was Isobel -- the Countess Marguerite Isabelle Theroux of France -- and..."

"You time-traveled to the 17'th century? And you aren't even trained?!" Zatanna said, looking shocked. "Do you have any idea how dangerous--!"

"No! She was resurrected here!" Lex cut in quickly. "She'd made a sort of... spell-trap for one of her ancestors. It was accidentally triggered a few years ago..." he trailed off as he realized. "Wait -- how do **you** know of her?"

"She's a classic hard-case study," Zatanna said promptly, "and an object warning to others not to go around doing stupid shit in front of mundanes and getting caught at it. --Where is she now?"

"Dead," Lex said, "and not coming back. She had her revenge; the spell of possession ended."

"Well, thank god for small favors," Zatanna said, letting out a breath of relief. "You actually survived her, though? I heard she didn't like guys all that much," she added, eyeing him dubiously.

"She did cast a nasty spell on me when we first met," Lex admitted.

Zatanna looked intrigued. "What did she cast?"

Lex grimaced. "A spell to force me to play the piano, _ad infinitum_."

Zatanna stared at him for a moment, then looked disgusted.

"Really?" she said. "You _don't_ think you're magical?"

Lex frowned at her. "A friend came by and tackled me away from the piano the next morning," he told her. "I wasn't able to stop on my own."

" _Alexander_ ," she sighed. "A mundane doesn't just _stop_ following a command spell just because somebody tried to physically stop them from doing it," she told him. "You would've just gotten right back up and started playing again."

Lex had a sickening sort of feeling settle in his gut.

"When you were on the floor," Zatanna asked, "Did you feel like you _had_ to get up?"

"Yes, but I didn't want to," _that was for sure!_

"So you concentrated as hard as you could on not getting up, not _wanting_ to get up, and you stayed put; the compulsion broke," Zatanna stated matter-of-factly.

Lex opened his mouth to protest, then slowly closed it. He'd mostly blamed that on Clark holding him down long enough that he _couldn't_ continue, but...

...he'd been trying very hard not to struggle against Clark, to stay put.

"It's very hard to break a compulsion spell on your own, even with training," Zatanna told him consolingly, patting him on the arm. "You're lucky you were able to stop; you've got talent, kid," she grinned widely.

Lex shot the younger woman a skeptical look, then sat down on a short stack of boxes. Zatanna perched nearby. "I very much doubt that," he said. "Shouldn't I have, well, been able to do something on my own by now? Accidentally?"

Zatanna shook her head. "Well, you did manage to hold off my book-retrieval spell pretty well, earlier, didn't you?" she said with a smirk, and Lex started. "But no, magic doesn't really work that way," she continued. "Training helps you get stronger and get more control, but mostly it's for helping you learn how to do things in the first place, not to keep you from doing them accidentally." She got a thoughtful look. "Well, except for family traits, but that's only for the long, old, and powerful lines."

"Like you."

"Yup!" Zatanna said happily, kicking her feet out. "My specialty is granting other people's wishes; with my family's spellbook," she said, patting it gently as it lay in her lap, "I'll be able to do a lot more."

Lex nodded, thinking. "What if I don't have a family spellbook?"

Zatanna screwed up her face. "That hardly ever happens," she admitted. "You're the first-born right? So you could start a new one if you can't find the old one, or if somebody destroyed it, but you'll basically be pulling power from the old one if it exists," she warned him. "The original won't be usable anymore, not for gathering more power," she said with a frown, "and it'll be a lot less powerful than the original. It'd take you centuries, and you'd have to rediscover all your family's secrets all over again. People lose stuff that way."

"But what happens if you need more than one copy?" Lex asked, curious. "If there's more than one child?"

"Sure, it happens all the time," Zatanna told him, leaning back. "But the main branch gets the family spellbook, the first-born magic-user of the main lineage gets the responsibility for it, whether that's adding to it, making sure it stays safe, bequeathing it to somebody else, all that jazz. And, they're the only one that can create new copies or pass them along," he was told. "There's a whole procedure for it -- making extra copies so that all of them build up power, rather than splitting it out and the source pool of it dying off. They're all tied together, and they all get updated if the first one does, and they can be torched from a distance by the main-line user if they're holding the original grimoire. Helps keep everybody in-line."

Lex raised an eyebrow or two.

"Most families aren't powerful enough to just cast whatever, whenever," Zatanna explained. "They pool power, stockpiling it, and only use it sparingly; a family spellbook is a good conduit for holding and accessing it. They're keyed to the specific bloodline, though. And to make a linked copy, you need the book being copied in-hand."

"Hmm."

"So you'd better figure out which of your parents has been lying to you and find it," he was told.

 _Well, it can't have been my father,_ Lex thought dourly. _He would've used it to his advantage. Or used me._ "I take it that magic doesn't skip a generation?" Lex asked.

"Sometimes, but that runs in families, too. --So, mother or father?" he was asked. "I'm betting on the mother. Dads usually show the hell off as much as possible," she winked.

Lex winced. "It's likely from my mother's side of the family," he agreed.

"Well, what's her maiden name? I bet I know 'em," Zatanna asked, showing mild interest. "Most of the families all know each other."

"It's--" Lex paused. "It's..." He frowned.

Then he felt rather embarrassed.

"You don't know?" Zatanna asked, straightening.

"I--" Lex felt his shoulders start to hunch inwards before he forced himself to stop that foolishness at once.

"Shit," Zatanna said. "She was a black sheep?"

Lex gave her an inquisitive frown.

Zatanna shook her head. "Not like that. Some of the families don't like it when the kids marry mundanes. Thinks it lowers the prestige." She snorted. "Last thing anybody needs is a bunch of inbred so-called blue-bloods running around insane, and another round of modern-day witch-hunts."

"I know that they were high-society, much farther up the social ladder than my father was," Lex said slowly, "and that they weren't happy that she married my father."

"But you never met them yourself?"

Lex nodded.

"Hm. Could have been either way, then. If she was disowned, well, that usually means by the entire family, minus a weird old crone-y aunt or two. But if she was the main line descendant, then they wouldn't dare approach her if she didn't want anything to do with 'em. That'd risk the spellbook's potency."

"Does _that_ happen often?" Lex asked.

"Not really, but that doesn't exactly narrow it down, either," Zatanna said, biting a fingernail. "Sometimes they just said that so-and-so died instead, and forget it. And it's not like _all_ of the families know each other," she added pensively. "Most of us do, but some of them are still pretty secretive, keep to themselves. And when the magic skips a generation..." she shrugged. "Sometimes it can skip more than one, if somebody doesn't get it."

"Latent, recessive genes?" Lex mused, remembering her earlier species distinction.

"Maybe. If someone doesn't cast a spell, it's usually pretty hard to figure out."

"Then how did your father know to send me a book?" Lex asked.

Zatanna rolled her eyes. "Dad was pretty up there in the ranks. He was one of the policing-types, I guess. Did a lot of demon-fighting. You have to know a lot to do that stuff, and a lot of people. There's probably a spell for that," she told him, "in here," she raised and shook her grimoire lightly at him, "but who the heck knows? He never really talked about that stuff with me. I was still working on the basics."

"Not exactly a magic school one can attend?" Lex asked dryly.

"Oh god, I wish," Zatanna enthused, eyes gleaming. "How much fun would that be?"

Lex winced.

"Aw, spoilsport," Zatanna teased, clipping him in the arm with a fist.

"Says the girl who enjoys granting monkey-paw wishes," Lex extrapolated, and Zatanna laughed. "Is there any way to tell what my family's specialty might be?"

"Oh, hey now, hold up -- that's actually two things there," Zatanna told him, pulling her feet up to sit indian-style. "There's _your_ innate skill, and then there's the family skill-set. They aren't always the same. And you usually need to have the family spellbook on-hand to unlock the second one."

Lex frowned. "And the innate skill?"

"Usually linked to either words or actions," Zatanna said promptly. "There something you're particularly good at doing?"

Lex tried not to make a sour face. "Not really..." At Zatanna's look, he sighed and ran a hand over his head, then added, "Does _almost_ talking people into doing or not doing things count?" Because, really, his persuasiveness could use some work. _How many times have I **almost** gotten myself or Clark out of a situation--_

"--only if it backfired at the end when you stopped trying so hard?" Zatanna said, and if Lex had still had hair, it'd've been standing on end.

"How--" Lex spluttered, then glared at her. "--I didn't _stop trying!_ "

"But you relaxed a bit when things were going well, and started to lower your guard, right?" Zatanna pressed. "Thought things were working out and didn't try any harder, maybe let up on the pressure just a bit?" She shook her head. "If you've got a persuasion gift, then that's the _opposite_ of what you needed to do -- the end's when you need to give an extra push to tie it all off neatly, so it doesn't all unravel on you," she told him. "Do I even want to know what you were trying to do?"

"Usually? Talk armed gunmen into not killing me or my friends, most often," he informed her dryly.

The young magician visibly winced. "Ouch." She pondered this for a moment. "Well, I guess that it's true what they say then."

"...What?"

She glanced over at him. "Us magic-types are _trouble!_ " she grinned.

Lex stared at her for a moment.

Then he began to laugh, helplessly, so hard that he cried.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex staggered as Zatanna shouted something and the warehouse disappeared in a puff of smoke.

He yanked his arm out of her grasp and pulled away from her quickly.

"Wait a moment!" Damn, had she disapparated them somewhere? He waved through the smoke. "I just told you--!"

"Don't be a wet blanket, Alex--" Zatanna told him.

"--it's _Lex_ ," Lex said, irate, trying to clear the smoke around him more quickly so he could see--

"--your silly old company can survive without you for awhile," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You," she said, levelling a finger at him, "are a _menace_ to society right now."

"What, only _right now?_ " he muttered, and she grinned at him. _Oh damn, we're not on the warehouse anymore._

"--I can't just leave!" he tried again, following her as she began to walk off. "I mean-- where the hell _are_ we?" he had to break off, because, really, _where the hell were they?!?_

"Shadowcrest," he was informed. "My family estate. --Nice reading room, right?"

This was a reading room? It looked more like a library.

"I hope you enjoy your stay!" she said brightly, as she walked out a door and then closed it behind her -- right in his face.

"Now, wait just a--" Lex grabbed the doorknob.

There was no doorknob. Just a solid stretch of wood.

_Oh, shit._

"Zatanna?" he called.

No answer.

_Rrgh._

He reached into his inner coat pocket for his phone, then froze.

He patted himself all over. No cellphone, wallet, keys...

_Son-of-a--!!_

"Zatanna!" he called. Banging on the door. "ZATANNA!"

Oh, that little _witch_ \--

He gave up after about thirty minutes or so, turned to face the room.

Looked down at the primer of compiled magic he was holding.

 _Fine,_ he thought bloodily. _She wants to lock me in here until I learn magic? I'll show her! I'll learn some freaking magic, and then I'll find something truly **nasty** and lie in wait, and when she least suspects it--_

He stomped over, dropped down into a chair by a table, and started reading.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Shit. Nothing made the least bit of sense.

~*~*~*~*~*~

On his third read-through through the entire thin volume, he thought he might finally have some sort of idea what the writer was trying to say in one of the smaller section paragraphs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He tried a few things, with little-to-no success.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe there was something helpful in some of the other books. --No, there _had_ to be.

If he could just find the books that some of these passages had come from--

~*~*~*~*~*~

All right, that made more sense.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ugh, was there a primer on German in here? His was rusty...

~*~*~*~*~*~

...Ancient Norse couldn't be that hard to learn, could it?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Huh. There were spells for purifying water?

Well, that would make sense in a medieval setting, he guessed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hah! So that was how the book-retrieval spell worked!

...Hmmm, could he use this to bring any book he wanted from the shelves right over to him, sight-unseen? That'd save him a lot of time in searching!

Well, drat.

...

Maybe if he tweaked it just a little...

~*~*~*~*~*~

That did it. He was going to find himself a book- _sending_ spell next. Or an 'undo' spell. Some kind of mid-progress spell-reversal, anyway. He wasn't about to spend three hours reshelving half the library again just because he accidentally misspelled the search parameters wrong.

It'd probably be helpful to have on-hand if he screwed up any other spell sometime, too. Something like a general-purpose reset switch.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ugh, how many dialects of Chinese were there again? And why couldn't the same book passage stick to the same one!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ooh, an all-purpose color-changing spell. Now _this_ he could do something with!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Huh. Magic-users could perform mock-telekinetic abilities? _That_ could be useful...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Shielding spells. _Bulletproof_ shielding spells.

_Hell yes._

~*~*~*~*~*~

Protection spells? How was that any different from shielding spells?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Oh. Huh.

~*~*~*~*~*~

...Okay, protection spells _clearly_ were not for him. He was pretty sure that they weren't supposed to leave char marks on the floor.

Or wobble like a soap bubble and then explode.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Elemental spells? Really? _Really?_

...

_Really?!?!?_

~*~*~*~*~*~

Oh. _Element_ spells. He was about to say...

That could come in useful, the next time he needed to purify a chemical sample.

...and that was probably why they seemed very similar to the water purifying spell.

Huh. Magic actually had rules.

~*~*~*~*~*~

...In retrospect, he should have been looking for a book on the "rules of magic" from the very start.

~*~*~*~*~*~

And apparently they were in the 10'th Age of Magic now.

Lex wondered what the other nine were like.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey, you ready for a food break, kiddo?"

Lex muttered something like "set it over there" and waved at a side table, because, honestly, he didn't want to be interrupted just then, he was nose-deep right in the middle of a book on--

...

_Wait._

Lex slowly lifted his head.

Zatanna grinned.

Lex pulled his arm back, incanted ball lightning at her, and threw.

...Ball lightning moved really slowly. In retrospect, he probably should have tested that spell first before using it.

Also, in retrospect, he probably should have guessed that Zatanna would know how to deal with that spell, seeing as it was her library and books he was learning from, after all.

Lex glowered at her.

"Wow. Huh. You got pretty far if you've got the lightning stuff down already," Zatanna said, bouncing the ball up and down in her hand like it _wasn't_ something that ought to electric-burn her fingers right off.

She tossed it up a final time and dissipated it with a word, as Lex sat there and glowered at her.

Lex tossed a fireball at her next.

Zatanna shouted out a word, grinning, and Lex had to throw up his hands and incant a shield before it hit him in the face.

Zatanna's eyes went off.

"Okay, I was kind of expecting you to duck, but... when the heck did you learn...?"

Then she glanced around the piles and piles of books with a slight frown, then turned and began marching towards the door.

Lex shoved himself upright and raised his hand again to--

"Oh, just sit and eat some dinner, you, I'm only checking the room wards. I'll give you another potshot at me before I leave again," she said peevishly.

Lex frowned after her.

She stopped at the wall, not all that close by the door, and started muttering under her breath.

Lex sighed and reseated himself down in front of the tray of food. Sandwiches and iced tea and soup.

...Could be worse.

He ate for awhile.

"Well, at least we know what your family power is, now," Zatanna informed him grimly, coming back over to plop down on the corner of the desk in front of him. " _You_ are not going _anywhere_ until you get this under control, mister."

Lex gave her a narrow-eyed glare. "Everything I've worked on--" he began.

Zatanna waved a hand at him. "How long have you been in here?"

"Three days," Lex said, then blinked.

Zatanna blew out a breath. "Okay, it's official. Not going anywhere."

Lex frowned. _I can't have been here three days..._

"It was almost three days, relative-time. You shouldn't have been able to tell that, unless you've got time-control."

Lex blinked at her. Then he blinked at her again.

"I was not in here for three days," Lex stated. Actually, he'd started to lose track of the time he'd spent with his nose in a book. Three days had just seemed like the right answer, somehow...

"Three days relative-time passage outside the room," Zatanna said, shaking her head at him. "It's a reading room. For studying. You know? There's a spell on the room to stretch out the time, one week for every day if somebody's in here, once the door is closed."

"I wasn't in here for only three weeks," Lex pointed out.

"No," Zatanna said, sounding huffy about it. "It was more like a week an **hour**. You overcharged the spell at some point." She eyed him. "You didn't tell me that you're a bibliophile."

"I don't see how that--"

"You got interested in what was in all these books and wanted to have the time to read them."

Lex opened his mouth to protest that, no, he'd just wanted to get through them to find something good to use on _her_ \--

...

... _okay, maybe I did start to read some of them just because they were interesting._

Zatanna rolled her eyes and sighed at him, but she was smiling.

"I **am** going to get back at you for locking me in here," Lex said warningly, ignoring the fact that he'd already tried and failed. _I'll figure something out, if it's the last thing I--_

"You're welcome, Alex," she grinned cheekily.

"It's Lex."

"Alex."

" _Lex._ "

"Actually, it's Alexander, so I get to choose the nickname."

"No, you don't."

"Like 'Xander."

"No, you don't!"

"Or Al."

"That's not--!"

"Or Ally."

" _Zatanna!!!_ "

"Or Aaaaaaalex."

Lex glared at her.

Zatanna stared at him expectantly.

"... _Fine_ ," Lex harrumphed, crossing his arms.

Zatanna grinned.

"You're just lucky that the spell's set up so that you don't need to eat or drink or anything while you're in here," she informed him.

Lex gave her another glare. "That'd be your fault for not checking up on me properly."

Zatanna tossed her head and blatantly ignored that.

"So," she said, instead. "What exactly have you been having trouble with? Anything?"

Lex stared at her, then sighed and gave up. For now.

"I've been having trouble with protection spells," he told her.

Zatanna blinked at him. "But you did fine with that shield spell."

"Yes?"

Zatanna frowned at him. "Shield spells are harder to maintain."

"Well, my protection spells blow up."

"Well, then you're not meshing them right with the other spells that you've got on you when--"

"I didn't have any spells on me, and I was practice-casting it in a side-table," Lex explained.

"Then you haven't been cleaning up after yourself properly, because they get caught on other spell-threads pretty easily if you're not careful," Zatanna told him. "But they should only get snagged and diverted, not _explode_."

"Yes, I already read something to that effect," Lex said dryly.

"Then you must have cast something on yourself and didn't deal with it properly," Zatanna insisted.

"I did _not_."

Zatanna gave him a look, then said something and made a yanking motion.

Lex yelped, then hissed as she made a pulling motion again, and gritted his teeth and batted at her hand.

"Okay, seriously, what did you do to yourself?"

All right, now he was starting to get irritated.

" _Nothing_ ," Lex insisted, rubbing at his chest.

"That wasn't nothing," Zatanna told him. "C'mon, give -- what hurts."

"Besides my aching skull, and my sand-papered skin, and the way it feels like you just tried to yank my heart and lungs out of my chest?!"

"...Okay, you _really_ screwed this one up," Zatanna told him.

"I didn't!" Lex insisted.

"Fine," Zatanna said, rolling her eyes. " **Not** today, if you're so sure you were careful. Obviously you must've done this sometime when you didn't know what you were doing, or you never would've screwed it up so bad."

Lex eyed her sideways, still rubbing slightly at his chest.

"If it hurt your _skin_ all over," Zatanna said, "then this must have been some sort of whole-body thing. Can you think of anytime when somebody tried to kill you all over?" she asked skeptically.

"Well, no. Most people try to just shoot me, not..." he trailed off.

"Not?"

"...Does it have to have been a person?" Lex asked tentatively, because if it came down to whole-body peril...

"Not necessarily. Why? Been in any natural disasters lately?"

...that narrowed the list significantly. "No, but I've almost drowned twice and... there was the meteor shower..." _Oh, hell._

"Meteor shower?"

Lex buried his head in his hands and groaned.

"Alex?"

"If I lost my hair because of a botched spell..." he mumbled, "Can I get it back if I fix it?"

He peered up at Zatanna through his fingers.

Zatanna started to giggle.

"It's not funny!" Lex insisted, feeling the color rise in his cheeks. "I was nine, and the sky tried to fall on my head!"

Zatanna managed to cut it back to a series of short snickers.

"Okay, okay," she said finally, waving him off. "Protection spells are not really my forte," she told him. "I'm more of a break-what-somebody-else-built sort of gal."

"No kidding," Lex muttered.

"And you need help with your time-tinkering anyway," Zatanna continued, pushing herself off the desk and to her feet. "So we might as well hit two birds with one stone. I know some people who can help you with both."

Lex slowly rose. "...You do?"

"Hey, they're not gonna be relatives of yours," Zatanna warned him, "trust me on this one. They're pretty out there. You'll have to go to them."

 _For anything that gets me out of being stuck in this room?_ "Sign me up," Lex said firmly, following her out of the open doorway. _And the first chance I get, I'll be headed for LuthorCorp,_ he told himself with no small relief. Three days wouldn't make for an unrecoverable mess awaiting him once he returned.

Even if he had literally vanished into thin air with no notice.

They walked down a hallway, then another hallway, then turned and went up a flight of stairs...

Lex was thoroughly lost by the time they entered another sitting room and Zatanna made a beelin for a writing desk.

"Just give me a minute to write you a letter of introduction," she told him, and he opted to stand and wait.

He scanned the room, and ended up walking over to the only real piece of interest within view -- a large, full-length mirror, mounted to the wall. There seemed to be something very odd about his reflection in it...

He frowned at it, then glanced behind him, then back to the mirror again.

He was reflected in it, but the room wasn't.

Spindly trees, white roots stitching in and out of the ground, a thin grey path, a dark black sky, and... were those low houses? One-story tall and made out of...?

The place looked like something out of the early colonial period.

"What is this?" Lex asked Zatanna, curious. _Are those moving... people? Light-blue-skinned... pilgrims?_

"Oh, that's a portal to the Witch-World dimension," Zatanna told him, putting down her quill pen.

"Witch-World dimension?" Lex echoed.

"Yup," Zatanna confirmed as she sprinkled sand on the paper to dry the ink, then shook it off and folded the letter. "A bunch of black-magic users live there. Everybody living there knows at least a little bit of it."

"...I take it that black magic is bad."

"Eh. Depends on what you use it for and whose blood you're sacrificing for what," she said, sounding completely unconcerned. She affixed a ribbon to it, then spilled wax on the edge and pressed down on the whole mess with a small metal seal. "They're pretty good at protection spells though; they have to be."

Lex frowned at her as she came over.

"These are the people you were talking about?" If this was in another dimension... he hadn't seen any books on dimensional travel in the 'library' sitting room. So much for escape -- not from there; not on his own. He'd still be stuck.

"Uh huh," Zatanna told him, handing him his letter. "Oh, and don't forget your primer. You can write stuff in there without accidentally creating a new family spellbook."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lex said, gesturing and calling it to him.

"Nice," Zatanna complimented him as it appeared in his hands.

But Lex was having second thoughts. "How exactly are these people supposed to be able to help me with time-control?" he asked. "They look stuck in the 16'th century themselves."

"Oh," Zatanna said with a smile. "They just like living that way. --No worries, though," she told him. "I'm sending you to Limbo Town! They're not nearly as isolationist as the rest of the place. ...Well, not as much as they used to be before my dad met some of them, anyway. It'll be fine as long as you give them the letter before they try to kill you and eat you as a blasphemer."

...Right.

"And this makes them experts on time, how exactly?"

"Well, it's how they isolated the dimension from everyplace else," Zatanna told him. "They all moved there from the colony of Roanoke, way back when."

Lex blinked at her.

"And what with wanting to remain isolationist and all," Zatanna continued blithely on, "they made it so that their relative-time to Earth is always keyed to Halloween."

_...What?_

"Have fun!" Zatanna said with a grin, and shoved him.

Lex stumbled backwards.

Through the mirror.

And stumbled on the lower edge as he went through.

He went down.

And hit dirt.

He hit hard.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex groaned slightly and blinked his eyes open.

_Ow._

He stared up at a black sky with grey clouds. And blinked.

A pale, black-haired boy entered his line of sight, upside-down.

"Hello!" the boy said cheerfully. "I'm Klarion the Witch-Boy! Who are you?"

Lex blinked up at him.

"I'm Lex Luthor," he said, and stopped, because he wasn't sure if he was a magician yet, or something else entirely. Then he remembered something very important. "I have a letter."

He held up the letter.

The boy peered at it carefully.

"Ooh," he said. "A visitor from beyond. --You should see the village elders." He got grinned at.

"This is going to be so much fun!" the boy enthused at him as he helped Lex to his feet. "I can just tell!"

"Uh huh," said Lex.

"Say," said the boy. "You wouldn't happen to know how the portals _out_ work, do you? Since you must have come _in_ on one, and all."

"What?" Lex said.

Then he turned and looked behind him.

And saw a lot more forest.

And no portal.

...And hadn't Zatanna said something about Halloween?

It was late April. October 31'st was a little more than six months away.

...

...

" _ **ZATANNA!!!**_ "

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~*~*~*~

The village elders hadn't exactly been thrilled to make his acquaintance.

Neither had the rest of the town.

Luckily, he'd had a similar experience in another small town in which he'd had to live for ~~many years~~ an extended period of time. He knew how to handle this.

...And if anyone had told him before then that he'd ever be thankful for his time and experience in dealing with the small-minded folks in Smallville, he'd have asked them what they were smoking, and how many shades of illegal it was.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Don't suppose you're not a heretic, are ye?" Lex was asked one day at one of the usual bonfire celebrations.

Lex sighed to himself. He'd been sitting on a large log, all alone, by himself, out and away from the crowd, for a reason.

"Is this a trick question?" Lex asked, and got grinned at by one of the older submissionaries.

"What's your religion?" he was asked instead, which was a significantly less-loaded one.

"I'm a lapsed Catholic," he told the man.

"You going to try and convert anyone here, boy?"

"Lapsed Catholics don't do much prosthelytizing," he told the man. "At all."

"Not even a little?"

"No."

"Darn," the man said. "And here I was hoping for a good burning at the stake." He sounded really put out about it, too.

"Sorry," said Lex, not really very, and he took another sip from his tankard.

There was a lull in the conversation, during which the man did not wander back off to the gathering at-large.

Lex waited.

"Don't suppose you'd like to convert to--?"

"No," said Lex promptly.

"Darn," said the man, and then he wandered off back to the gathering.

Lex took another sip from his tankard, then sighed.

All things considered, it was probably a good thing that he'd learned that water purification spell before Zatanna had dumped him here. He'd been using it a lot on his beverages.

Like the bat's blood. There was a surprising amount of water in bat's blood, really.

And Lex had gotten very good, very quickly at purifying anything-not-water out of water _very_ thoroughly.

Lex contented himself with the knowledge that, eventually, he would figure out how to open a portal back to Earth from this twilight realm, he would find Zatanna again, and _he would get even_.

It was a very warm thought for a very cold night.

Lex sipped at his very-thoroughly- _un_ tainted now-water and sighed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Witch-World was a bit odd, in more ways than one.

What the residents called black-magic here was both a way of life and a religion. Luckily, one could learn one without the other, or Lex would be in trouble. Apparently, adopting the religion gave you a bit of a power-boost, though, so it made everything Lex tried to do and learn take three times as long for him as it did everyone else.

The sky was pitch black, with grey clouds that were lit with a low ambient light from nowhere in particular that never really varied or changed. 

They didn't exactly have days here, just nights.

The lack of sunlight didn't exactly help his complexion or his developing depression, either. It was a land of eternal twilight.

They grew a lot of mushrooms here.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It turned out that Zatanna had been right about the botched protection spell.

And Lex had been right about his hair.

He hadn't actually been a meteor freak at all -- it had been a miscast, frantic, instinctually-done self-protection spell gone horribly awry that had protected him from the radiation completely. And fixed his asthma. And both streamlined and overcharged his immune system. And made him bald.

It took them three-times-three mealtimes before his witch-tutor had been able to finish helping him untangle himself from it, not counting a great deal of preparation time and learning that had had to take place before that.

Lex grew his hair out to ponytail length. He felt he deserved it.

He wore the usual hat, just like all the other pilgrims did, but he still got a lot of stares. In a town of witches with pale-blue skin and jet-black hair, men and women both, he was the only one who was pale-white with bright-red hair.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was doing _much_ better at protection spells now. After having fixed and reaffirmed the spell that he'd accidentally cast, in order to resuppress his asthma and put his cardiovascular and immune systems in what he considered fighting trim once again, he'd had to be.

Time-control, on the other hand...

...well, whatever time-sense Zatanna had thought he might have had before was broken. Any time he tried to think of the passage of time now, it felt like nothing so much as a clock hand inside his head, just about to tick forward, and stopping. And just about to tick forward, and stopping.

And just about to tick forward...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex learned everything they could teach him about time, anyway, even if it wasn't very useful.

Some of it was strange. Sometime he could swear that they must be mixing up space and time, but that didn't really make any sense. The concepts were related, but not the exact same thing...

...right?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex still had a lot to learn, but he didn't want to wait any longer. He _couldn't_. He **had** to get back.

He told this to the village elders.

The village elders promised that he was welcome back to continue his studies when he returned.

Apparently there was an incantation to open the portal from this side, and they were happy to give it to him.

...In retrospect, this probably should have been the first thing that he'd asked them.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex hadn't had a lot to pack. The clothes he'd come in were in a satchel slung over his back, along with his very thoroughly marked-up primer. The letter had stayed with the village elders.

He walked with a broom in his hand and a set of Puritanical clothing on his person. It probably spoke none-too-well of his extended time here that he'd gotten used to the feel of it, and didn't mind wearing it so much anymore.

He actually wasn't looking forward to the suits and ties he'd have to be wearing, once he was back home. His old clothes had actually looked almost foreign to his eyes when he'd looked over them for a long moment before electing to pack them away instead of wear them.

The thought and subsequent decision should have been more disturbing to him than they were.

Klarion dogged his steps as he strode back up the path towards and into the woods.

"Can I come too?" he begged. "I want to see the Earth. I want to go adventuring!"

"It really isn't that great," Lex told him, "or safe." He was seriously worried about what the aliens might have done to his world in the meantime, while he'd been away. Kal-El of Krypton.

He stifled a shudder.

"But I can come, right?"

Lex sighed.

"If the incantation works for you, I won't stop you," Lex told him. Though he probably should. Klarion didn't even have a familiar, yet.

"Yay!" Klarion enthused, bouncing up and down.

But the village elders had told him that the portal he'd come through would only admit those who came from the world it was anchored in.

Lex said the incantation and stepped through.

Klarion was left behind.

He looked pretty put out, kicking up some dirt and likely cursing a bit -- sound didn't travel through, apparently -- but he still waved Lex goodbye, in the direction he'd stepped through. Lex had told him about the mirror.

Lex waved back, even though he knew Klarion couldn't see him.

And then Klarion left.

...Right. Now, to find Zatanna.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tch, but this place was a maze.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Where the hell was she?!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Better yet, where the hell was the front door?

~*~*~*~*~*~

...Screw this, he was going out a window.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex managed to find a window at the end of a hallway, and marched over to it.

It was stuck.

He forcibly incanted the blasted thing open.

Then he tossed his broom out onto the air and mounted it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He flew.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It took him awhile to get his bearings from the air; he'd had no idea where Shadowcrest was supposed to be located -- Zatanna had never said.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Finally, after flying for what felt like hours, he found the California coastline.

He stopped, thought about that for a moment, then sighed to himself. He was being stupid.

He canted his broom widdershins and slid himself sidetimeways.

~*~*~*~*~*~

There, much better.

...Huh. That was a lot easier to do, now that he wasn't stuck in a timeless dimension that had been unstuck-from-reality.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex flew home, past trees and birds and bushes and grasses all frozen in time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He flew over the Kent Farm above, and didn't really think anything of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He touched down on the front stoop of the mansion, slid off the broomstick feet first, and then rotated the broom up to his shoulder.

He stepped forward and frontways and slid back into time quite correctly.

\--With almost a snap, he was so precise.

He took another step forward and rang his own doorbell. (Zatanna still had his keys. The _magician_. Tch.)

He waited.

He heard footsteps, and then a shout.

The door swung open.

"Mr. Luthor sir!" came the hue and cry, and he was practically assaulted where he stood.

_That_... was a **very** welcoming hug.

"Hello, Ms. Beatrice," Lex told his matronly cook, as he began to smile.

"Oh, you.... _you!_ " he was told, as his cook disentangled herself and finally took a step back from him. "Do you have any idea how worried we all were! And nary a word from you for six whole months!"

_Oh thank god._ He'd been afraid it'd been more than a year, or that he'd mistimed it somehow. Time-sense did _not_ work well in other, disconnected dimensions.

"I'm sorry," he told her, "I was unavoidably detained."

"You would be," she said, wiping a tear away. "You and your _unavoidable detainments_. That island adventure of yours was bad enough!" she proclaimed, shaking a finger at him.

"I was sorry for that, too," he said, stifling a grin.

"Yes, you were," he was told. "And if I had half a mind to, you would not be getting candied-apples with your supper tonight."

"I'm sure that whatever you make tonight will be wonderful," he told her. _And not just because I've been eating mushrooms and somewhat-questionable bread for six long months._

"Ah, you," she blushed and waved a hand at him. "Oh, and I love your costume tonight, sir. Very festive." She nodded at him authoritatively, giving him the once-over.

Lex smiled.

"Come in here, come in," he was told, and he did.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The rest of his staff were similarly happy to see him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tess Mercer had been put in charge in his absence. Instead of opting to live in the Penthouse in the city, she'd been living in the mansion-proper.

(Small wonder his staff had been happy to see him. Heh.)

He was probably going to need to fire some board members for this one. Yes, with Gina gone, he hadn't selected a new proposed candidate for his replacement yet, in the event of his incapacitation or death, but... just... _what had they been thinking?_ She wasn't trustworthy -- she worked for **Checkmate** , for god's sake! She shouldn't have been let loose with that much power over his company's affairs without a very high-level of some sort of direct and damn near personally-invasive supervision, at least!

...

...

...Oh, well. Bygones.

His single question to her over dinner had been, "Is LuthorCorp still standing?"

Her "...yes," was good enough for him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Where are you going?" Tess asked him after dinner, as he doffed his witch-hat and headed for the front door.

"Out for a bit," he told her, picking up his broom from where he'd left it by the front door. "I need some fresh air."

"But--"

"I'll be back," he told her with a smile, and he left.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He flew rounds over Smallville, smiling at the sight of all the little kids running around, playing trick-or-treat.

He wondered what else he'd missed.

Kal-El couldn't have taken over, the feeling in the air was too festive.

He saw one of a group of smaller children look up, and the child's mouth drop open at the sight of him.

Lex smiled. And he waved.

The kid, seemingly dazed, waved right back.

The child's mother glanced down at her kid, then looked up.

Lex tried not to grin at the blank look he'd garnered, before he slid sidetimeways and flew off.

The mother would likely convince herself she'd seen nothing -- from her perspective, he would have been there one moment and blinked out of existence the next.

But the way that she'd reacted had made it clear. She hadn't shown the least bit of panic, despite Zor-El's short-lived reign of terror in Metropolis two years prior. No Kryptonian had been flying about, making a mess of things, in the meantime.

Six months he'd been gone. Had nothing of note really happened in six months?

...And then, finally, he thought of Clark Kent.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He landed on Clark's doorstep and stepped forward and... stopped.

And then he stepped backwards, very carefully.

He smiled grimly to himself, eyes flashing, and incanted the door unlocked.

He shoved it open and walked inside.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark was sitting at the kitchen table, frowning over a newspaper, in a frozen tableau. "Faster than a speeding bullet," read the headline. It was an advance copy, set to be published the next day, and had an accompanying picture that was too crazy to be believed.

...The Good Samaritan. Huh.

It kind of looked like Oliver to him, only in a very bad-fitting Warrior Angel outfit with an incorrect color scheme.

Lex shook his head.

Then he was frowning himself, as he looked over what was littering the rest of the table.

A serial killer in Metropolis? And a brutal one at that.

...These didn't look like normal killings. These looked more like what a Phantom inhabiting a host body might do, when slaughtering other humans. He'd learned that well enough the year prior.

Lex stalked around the table, taking it all in. It looked like Clark had been very thorough in his research.

Good.

He stopped opposite of him, then slipped back into the timestream slowly.

Relative to Lex, Clark slowly began to move. An overly-long blink, the start of a long intake of breath. And then his eyes moved upwards.

Much faster than they should have.

His eyes widened and pupils contracted at what looked like normal speed.

Lex wasn't moving relative to time at a normal speed.

_Aha. Got you._

Lex smiled.

Clark backed up a step, knocking over the stool he'd been sitting on.

Lex dropped back into normal time.

"Where--?! _How--!?_ " said Clark.

"Nervous?" Lex asked, turning his broom sideways and parallel to the floor, then setting it down on the table. Did Clark realize that he’d given himself away, moving too fast?

Clark blustered for a moment, then drew himself up and said, "What are you _doing_ here?"

_Apparently not._

"I can't drop by and say hello?" Lex asked, acting put out. For all of two seconds, before he couldn't help but grin again.

If this was what Zatanna felt like all the time interacting with everyone else, he could understand her near-constant sky-high levels of mirth.

"How did you get in!"

"I walked in through the front door." He had to stifle a laugh as Clark whipped his head around and _checked_.

"But-- you--"

"You didn't see me come in?" Lex asked, oh-so-innocently.

He got glared at.

And then he got asked, rather accusingly, "Did you do this?"

Clark was pointing at the table.

...Ah. He must mean the photos.

He nearly gave a terse ‘no’ in preparation to make ready to bite Clark’s head off. (Figuratively.) But then he stopped himself and thought for a moment.

"Probably not," said Lex. After all, he hadn't tried going backwards in time yet -- and probably wouldn't anytime soon, he wasn’t _stupid_ \-- but if he ever did so and ended up possessed by a homicidal alien again... well, who knew?

" _Probably_ not?" Clark sputtered.

"Well, did _you_ do it?" Lex asked reasonably.

"NO!!"

"Good."

" **\--Get out of my house!!** "

"If you insist," Lex said smoothly. He picked up his broom and headed for the door.

But he paused at Clark's side.

"Oh, and Clark?" he said oh-so-sweetly, as he looked up at the not-quite-mundane farmer's boy.

" _What_ ," Clark ground out, glaring down at him.

Lex leaned towards him.

"Happy Halloween."

He grinned quite evilly at his ex-friend, then slid sidetimeways without moving a muscle, disappeared completely into thin air on him.

To Clark.

Apparently Clark couldn't quite disengage from the timestream the way he could.

Pity, that.

For Clark, that is.

Lex walked home.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It occurred to Lex, during his long walk, that he could do just about anything he wanted. Divorced from time, the possibilities were endless.

He could easily go and retrieve the Veritas solution faster than the blink of an eye, on broomstick, no less.

He'd already mastered his own body clock. He wouldn't age, or die, unless he really wanted to. It was one of the first things that the witches had taught him. They hadn't even considered it a Dark Art, simply common sense.

He could gain what he needed to have control over the Traveler, and--

Lex stopped for a moment.

Then he felt almost stupid.

He didn't need some unknown artifact of alien origin for that. He already knew how to do that with a simple wooden stick, prepared properly. The witches in Limbo Town could use rowan rods to gain complete mental dominance over others, control them completely. They used them on the zombies they raised to work their fields for them.

They worked just as well on sentient beings, too, or so he had been told, and he had no reason to doubt them. They hadn't lied to him yet.

_...so why am I thinking of wasting my time on...?_

Hell, he hadn’t even retrieved his family grimoire yet.

Maybe he should do that, first? Instead?

...

Well. Maybe he'd think it over better in the morning.

He continued on, homeward-bound.

He'd stay up all night tonight, though. Just this once.

He couldn't wait to see the sun rise again.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

~*~*~*~*~*~

Epilogue:

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was lounging on his couch in his library in his mansion-castle, humming softly to himself as he paged through an old edition of The Art of War.

This was one dialect of ancient Chinese he'd gotten much better at reading during his stay at Zatanna's estate.

His understanding of the original untranslated version was that much better for it.

He felt more than heard the soft explosion of displaced air and smoke behind him.

He quirked his lips downward, held his book in place, and waited.

Footsteps towards him from behind, then they stopped.

"Hey, Alex." He could just about hear the grin.

"It's Lex," he said, slowly closing the book.

"I like your hair."

Lex slowly tilted his head back, to look up into an upside-down smile.

Lex scowled up at her.

"It's really pretty."

Lex scowled up at her.

Then he blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, dropping his head back down.

"Shut up," he told the younger magician.

Zatanna jumped over the back of the couch and settled down next to him.

"You're welcome!" she said brightly.

Lex eyed her.

"I think you would look very nice in a shade of neon orange," he informed her, in slow and dangerous tones.

"You think?" she said, unfazed.

Lex stared at her.

"Hey, do you want me to do your hair?" Zatanna asked him.

Lex stared at her.

...And then he mentally threw his hands up at her.

"Fine," he said, tossing the book over onto the coffee table.

"You can do mine next," he was informed, as she apparated a hairbrush into her hands out of nowhere with a type-2 magical summons.

...Well, that made it marginally better.

"Turn around, turn around!"

Lex turned around. This was probably a bad idea. He had problems even when he was the one brushing it, and it was his own stupid too-wavy hair.

"You'd better not pull too hard," he warned her. "Or I shall have my revenge."

"Yeah, yeah," Zatanna scoffed with a smile, undoing the leather strap from his ponytail and unwinding it.

And the sun rose in the east.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN2: In case anybody wants some of the vast majority of the nitty-gritty trivia I used/referenced...
> 
> 7x16 Descent aired on April 18, 2008, and seems to span one or two days; 4x02 Gone aired on September 29, 2004, but it spans several days (at least three or four). 4x10 Scare is when Genevieve Teague gets Lionel released from prison, aired on December 1, 2004.
> 
> 3x19 Memoria is when we see the scene where Lionel gives Lex the lead box (supposedly made from St. George's armor) on his 12'th birthday when nobody came; this is first mentioned in 1x02 Metamorphosis ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Lead_box)). **I may break canon slightly here** , since the Wikia notes state that Lex was 11 when Lillian got pregnant, was pulled home for Lillian's pregnancy, turned 12, and _then_ Julian died around 1992 ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Memoria)), because it was 1992 when Lionel was called in because Lex had that baby-blanket freak-out at school. I'm not sure that that's completely accurate, or explicitly stated anywhere, though. _In this fic, I'm assuming that Lex turned 12 at least a couple months after Julian died, not before._ (Because, quite frankly, it just makes more sense to me the other way around).
> 
> 9x12 (Warrior) -- John Zatara had cursed a lot of objects in his 'roaring 20's', one of which was a Warrior Angel comic book, because the company that published it had stolen the idea from a friend of his ([link](http://tvmegasite.net/prime/shows/smallville/transcripts/season9/9-12.shtml)); the issue number was #0 ([link](http://www.homeofthenutty.com/smallville/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=187&pid=84723#top_display_media)), and called "Warrior Angel: Secret Origins" ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Warrior_Angel))

**Author's Note:**

> 7x15 (Veritas) -- Lionel Luthor and the other three families (Swann, Queen, Teague) formed Veritas, the secret society that knew about Kryptonian presence on/coming to Earth; Lex remembers and is going through his memories during this episode; Lex is remembering things from before the meteor shower now, apparently having been blocked out prior due to the trauma, and it turns out that Warrior Angel was a thing that he and Oliver used to both like, when they used to be friends and playmates, along with Jason and Patricia, when their parents were having their meetings; his memories were 'fixed' because Chloe had used her healing powers on him a few episodes prior to save both his and Clark's lives -- he'd been shot in the head and dying while Clark was linked up to him through Summerholt memory tech and trying to search through his memories for where Lois and Kara were being held, because of the mind link they would have died together if Lex had died while Clark was still under; Patricia Swann lies to Lex about what she knows about Veritas; Lex orders his people to get the first key from Patricia Swann but has her killed in the process; at this point, Lex believes that the keys will lead directly to a weapon to control the Traveler, not to the clues to find the weapon ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Veritas_\(episode\)))
> 
> 7x16 (Descent) -- Lex kills/murders Lionel in trying to obtain the second key from him; Lex eventually realizes that Chloe had been given the second key and he takes it from her and fires her from the Daily Planet; at this point, Lex still believes that the keys will lead directly to a weapon to control the Traveler, not to the clues to find the weapon; Lex's personal assistant Gina died covering up Lionel's murder, a member of Veritas working for Edward Teague killed her ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Gina))
> 
> 8x17 (Hex) -- after Zatara died, his book of spells was sold at an auction and acquired by Lex Luthor ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/John_Zatara)); it is an ancient spellbook, similar to Isobel's spellbook ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Zatara)), and contains her family's magical heritage ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/John_Zatara)); without the book Zatanna can grant other people's wishes of whatever they most desire at the moment, but not her own; with the Book of Zatara, her powers increased, and she found that she can cast/conjure anything that she says backwards ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Hex))
> 
> general -- Zatanna can cast magic spells, grant other people's wishes, can appear and disappear at will (teleportation) and has a form of telekinesis (can pull her spellbook to her) ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Zatanna_Zatara)) ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Hex)); the Zatara family estate is Shadowcrest, supposedly passed down through the family line ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Zatanna_Zatara))...  
> "Zatanna: My father left me an estate in Shadowcrest, so money isn't an object.  
> Oliver: Shadowcrest... John Zatara, the maestro of magic... He was your father? Well, I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose family.  
> Zatanna: Yeah. I lost more than my father." ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Hex));  
> "During World War II, John [Zatara] was a member of a shadowy anti-occult unit called "Shadowpact", alongside Bones and Felix Faust, but he left the unit after their first mission." and later died saving Zatanna's life ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/John_Zatara)); they are probably _Homo magi_ given the 'ancestry of magic' thing
> 
> general -- "The Countess Marguerite Isabelle Theroux, more commonly called Isabelle, was an infamous and royal witch of France who lived in the early 17th century, as well as the ancestress and past life of Lana Lang. ... She was from the village Castelnau-de-Montmiral. Isobel was shown to be highly accomplished in both witchcraft and martial arts." ([link](http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Margaret_Isobel_Thoreaux))
> 
> general -- Witch World and Klarion the Witch Boy, who are not really a Smallville universe thing ([link](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klarion_the_Witch_Boy) and [link](http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Klarion_Bleak_\(New_Earth\)))


End file.
